1. Field of the Invention
The relevant technical field is computer software, specifically distributed processing in a networked environment.
2. Description of the Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
In what is not ironically called a “network effect”, the advantage of distributed processing is positively correlated to availability of powerful computers in a networked environment. This trend is especially encouraged by always-on broadband connection to the ultimate wide-area network: the Internet.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,388 details “detecting available computers to participate in computationally complex distributed processing problems”, and switching an allocated task portion to a different computer if the one first assigned the task portion becomes occupied. 6,192,388 also describes some of the resource factors involved in determining whether to allocate a task portion to a computer.
With some content overlap to the earlier-filed 6,192,388, U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,225 describes a “task distribution processing system and the method for subscribing computers to perform computing tasks during idle time”, and goes into detail as to various ways of specifying “idle time”. Both 6,192,388 and 6,112,225, incorporated herein by reference, use the same computer for allocating, monitoring and re-allocating task portions.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,358 discloses sophisticated regimes of scheduling of distributed processing tasks using software agents. In the face of schedule slippage, such a system relies upon coordination among multiple agents to work effectively.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,370,560 discloses “a load sharing system . . . . A controller divides a divisible load or task and assigns each segment of the load or task to a processor platform based on the processor platform's resource utilization cost and data link cost.”